THEY JUST DON'T GET IT

It seems fair to say that when Laila Ali first took up boxing there was more than a little scepticism. People wondered if the daughter of Muhammad Ali and his third wife, Veronica Porsche, was just boxing as a gimmick or perhaps to open the door to other opportunities. But Ali has proved that she has the dedication and the desire, and most people in boxing seem to agree that she can fight. Maybe it's in the genes. 

Ali, in fact, has arrived, and on 23 August the statuesque and beautiful 25-year-old takes part in what is surely the highest-profile fight in women's boxing history when she meets Christy Martin, the "Coal Miner's Daughter" at the catchweight of 162lbs (11st 8lbs) at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi, to be seen on pay-per-view TV in America. 

British TV coverage had not been arranged at time of writing. Ali, who defends the International Boxing Association women's super middle title in the 10 (two-minute) rounds bout, has won 15 successive fights with 12 opponents stopped. Her debut was a farcical one-rounder in October 1999, but the improvement she has shown has been, I think, remarkable. She is managed by the former cruiserweight Johnny "Yahya" McClain, who also happens to be her husband, and is trained in Las Vegas, where she now makes her home, by ex-champ Roger Mayweather. 

The promotion of her fight with the much more experienced but much smaller Martin got off to a wild start when the two scuffled at a press conference. Ali, confronted and pushed by Martin, threw two quick punches before the two were parted. Ali believes she is the aggrieved party and still sounded indignant over the phone from Las Vegas a couple of days after the incident. 

"She spoke first and said what she had to say, and when I got up to speak she kept interrupting and making little comments," Ali said. "So I looked over to her and said: "Are you trying to intimidate me?' She got up and said: "Why don't you just relax?' So I got in her face and said: "Why don't you relax? You just sit yourself down, little momma.' " That's when things got physical. 

Ali said: "I think that with Christy Martin, she's just used to being called the best [female] fighter and she's used to being the most known fighter [in female boxing], and now she's in a situation where she's the underdog, I'm the star, and I'm not intimidated by her." Ali, who stands 5ft 10ins to Martin's 5ft 4ins, and who will be about 10lbs heavier at the weigh-in (the contract calls for Martin's minimum weight to be 152lbs, or 10st 12lbs) sees the fight as a mismatch and is brutally honest about it. "She can't outbox me," Ali said. "She knows that. And she's gonna find out that she can't outfight me, either. 

For one, I use my distance - I know how to fight at a distance. "I know she's been saying I'm not going to be able to deal with the type of pressure that she's gonna put on me. It's funny, because to think of someone that small trying to bully me - that's funny. I don't know what she thinks I'm gonna be doing when she's trying to run in. I'm gonna fight her, I throw sharp combinations and I'm very accurate and I'm very used to people trying to come in and bully me. "I'm sure she's watched some tapes and she probably thought: "Well, no one's put pressure on her like me.' But they all come in with that same strategy. But once you can't get past the jab, and you can't get past my reach - you know. 

"I think that was her same strategy for Mia St. John, who she went the distance with, to try to bully her, and she didn't have enough skills to cut the ring off on her. But I tell you one thing, she's not gonna have to look for me because I'm gonna be right there, coming to her. I'm the bigger, stronger fighter. Obviously she believes a lot of the hype about her strength and her power, but even if she does hit me upside the head, the girls I'm used to fighting are way stronger than she is, so I don't know what she thinks she's gonna do. 

"Once I beat her, I'm not gonna get any credit for beating her, period. She's older than me, she's shorter than me, she's smaller than me. Everyone's gonna say: "She was too small, she was too old, she was past her prime.' This is really about giving people what they want to see and also, I suppose, making money. That's all this is about. I don't need to fight her for any reason. She needs to fight me." Can't be more honest than that. But if people want to see the two biggest names in women's boxing go at each other, that's what they're getting. And Christy Martin talks a good fight, too. 

There is interest in the fight. As the publicist, Norman Horton, admitted: "It's got more legs than I thought it would have." Yet in the early days the thought of Ali fighting on pay-per-view TV (in fact this will be her third such bout, although by far the biggest) would have seemed far-fetched. She seems, for instance, a much more complete fighter than she did when she struggled to outpoint Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, Smokin' Joe's daughter (definitely no love lost there) on PPV in August 2001. "I think it's a combination of things," Ali said of her progress. "Of course I work hard and I have people around me who know boxing and have high expectations of me, and I have high expectations of myself. 

"But people don't realise I had shoulder surgery after I fought Jacqui Frazier. For a long time, since the beginning of my career, my shoulder has been holding me back because it would start hurting and I couldn't get past a certain point without having shoulder pains. "I had a bone spur - I have it in both shoulders and the one on the left shoulder was just worse. It was digging into my rotator cuff every time I lifted my arm. For a long time I didn't know what it was. 

But after the fight with Frazier it was such a problem - during that fight and just training for that fight. I decided to get it checked and get an MRI and have surgery done. "So once I had that surgery I was able to be a more well-rounded fighter and work on different combinations and to be 100%, you know, having the confidence in my arm and not having to worry about if I throw a hook it's going to hurt, or if I jab too many times my arm's going to start hurting. "I didn't make it public, but those were the things I was dealing with.

"People have to realise that at the beginning of my career I didn't have any amateur fights or anything and everyone's watching me from the first time I stepped into the ring - of course I'm not gonna look all that great. But because I am Muhammad Ali's daughter, and I do have natural talent, everything's been able to unfold for me. "I didn't have the amateur background. I came out of nowhere. 

Women's boxing wasn't even at the level that it's at now. People look at me and think: "She can't possibly want to be a fighter.' They assumed - and I always get the question: "You must be doing this as a platform to be a model or an actress.' And I would say: "Listen to what you're saying. That's so stupid. Why would you want to fight in order to be a model or an actress and risk messing your face up?' If I wanted to do that, I could easily do it just on my looks alone. 

I don't have to get into the ring and make a fool out of myself and out of my dad and disgrace my whole family [had things not worked out]. "I've already gotten offers to do movies and this and that, [and] I could have been done with boxing by now. But I haven't reached my goal yet. I'm gonna keep going until I do." Ali admits to disliking Jacqui Frazier "and the girl I just fought, Valerie Mahfood, her and I didn't like each other; she said some really nasty things about me, just unforgiveable things". 

And now Christy Martin. "In her interviews she was saying I'm disrespectful and she wants to shut me up and all that," Ali said, "and then she ends up being the one that's disrespectful. I think she's just had a lot of animosity toward me and she's very bitter. She had an attitude when she first showed up [at the press conference]. In her opening statement it was: "Laila Ali needs to fight me in order to be considered the greatest,' when everyone knows that that's not the case.

" Ali has a vicious streak (I almost added the words "for a woman" but that would, of course, get me accused of typical male stereotyping). But yes, she admits, if she hurts an opponent she is ruthless in going for the finish. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?" she asks. "I think that everyone has a different temperament inside and outside the ring, and I don't think it has anything to do with being a male or a female, it's just the type of fighter you are. 

"Some people don't have the instincts that it takes. A lot of people don't realise when they have somebody hurt, and then you have people that know they have someone hurt but they don't want to take a chance to step it up. "With me, I step into the ring confident and feeling like I have the upper hand to begin with, and I'm just waiting for that moment, and when I get you hurt I want to get you out of there. And I'm the same way at the gym. "I'm not a nice fighter. I'm trying to hurt you, I'm trying to make you feel it. There ain't no touching gloves and "I won't hit you if you don't hit me.' I'm letting it all go. 

I hurt my sparring partners, and they're all men. I know how to dig to the body. If I hit you there, I'm gonna hurt you. "Christy's definitely going to get punishment, especially now, because I'm personally offended that she thought that she was going to be able to shove me down. But at the same time it lets me know that she's feeling a little insecure. "I know she's tough, so it's not like she's gonna fall in the first round, but she ain't gonna make it through 10 rounds, and you can quote me on that." And after Christy Martin, if all goes well, what comes next? "There's a couple of girls out there in my weight class such as Anne Wolf - people think she's going to pose a problem for me and I don't want to retire and have anyone saying: "Oh, she didn't fight this girl.' I know what I'm gonna do to her. She don't have any skills. 

She's big, she's strong and she's just wild. Hopefully she'll be fighting on this undercard and we can set up the fight between us. "And I'd like to have a rematch with Jacqui Frazier, and then there really isn't much left out there for me and I'm getting kinda bored as far as the skill level. 

There's more talent in the smaller weight classes - it's the same as in men's boxing. So, what can I do? A couple more years, if that, and I'll be done. "I have so many different opportunities. But that's not really my focus right now. My focus is boxing and I'm not really gonna start focusing on anything else until I'm done, because I have a fear of getting soft in the ring and I don't want that ever to happen." One thing I wondered was why she said the words: 

"They just don't get it!" into the TV camera after stopping Valerie Mahfood. What did she mean by that? Ali laughed and said: "I've been saying that a lot lately, because it's like, every time I win, every time I look great, every time I exceed expectations, it's always another excuse. For example that ignorant Max [Kellerman] on ESPN: "Oh, Valerie Mahfood's just too small' and "Laila doesn't want to fight Anne Wolf.' "Wait a minute. 

Valerie Mahfood is 168 pounds, she's also a light-heavyweight champion, she also knocked out the woman that you're saying I don't want to fight, but all of a sudden she's too small? We're dealing with a weight class here, we're not dealing with height. "They say: "Oh, she [the opponent] just didn't have the skills,' they don't say: "Laila had too much skills.' You know? They never want to give me credit. "And then there's your people who say: "Why do you box? You're so pretty.' "So I just say: "They just don't get it.' "No matter what I do, they just don't get it."